Located in the eastern corner of northern Mali along the border with Algeria, the Tigharghar Mountains consist of a rugged wilderness that both grants protection and allows penetration of the border, across which the mountain chain extends into Algeria's Hoggar Mountains and Niger's Air Mountains. The area covers roughly 22,000 square kilometers (8,500 square miles), which is almost the same as the surface area of New Jersey. Within Mali, the Tigharghar chain is bordered to the south and west by stretches of desert that disconnect this region of the country from the nearest relatively populated area along the Niger River. Hunted militants in this flat, open terrain are much more vulnerable than they are in the mountains, although the sheer size of the desert territory makes them hard to locate.